OpenAI's plugin examples repo passes 6,072 stars

OpenAI's plugins repository has passed 6,072 stars, and the whole thing runs on one file format. Each plugin lives in plugins/<name>/ with a required .codex-plugin/plugin.json manifest, plus optional skills/, .app.json and .mcp.json files alongside it.

That folder structure is the documentation. There's no separate spec page explaining how Codex plugins are supposed to work. You read the manifest layout in a working example instead.

The format itself answers a real question: how do you package a Codex skill, an app and an MCP server connection so they install as one unit? The manifest is the answer. A plugin folder can carry all three, wired together through plugin.json.

For anyone building on Codex, that's the reference to copy now rather than guess at later. The repo is curated, not a dump of every plugin in the wild. What's inside reads closer to a template than a sample of real-world usage.

What the repo doesn't say is how OpenAI validates a plugin before anyone trusts it, or whether this manifest shape holds as Codex changes. Watch for a formal spec document or an SDK release. Either would mean OpenAI is locking the format in writing, not just letting a popular repo define it by example.